By Mark Gibson
While bank marketers are consistent in how they rate the perceived ROI of various marketing channels, their commitment to spending in the best-performing channels varies, according to a recent ABA survey. Digital channels continue to rank toward the top, with direct mail and outdoor advertising claiming the top traditional media spots.
Planned investment decisions generally mirror channel performance, with a couple of notable exceptions. But the three-year trend is less clear, with fewer marketers investing in top performing channels.
Channels with the best ROI
First, bank marketers evaluated each marketing channel based on its perceived return. Digital channels continued their clean sweep, capturing the top five positions as they did in the previous two years. Bank marketers rate digital channels higher than traditional channels because they can more easily correlate these channels with sales results.
Digital advertising has recaptured the number one spot this year, overtaking search engine marketing/optimization, which placed first last year. Similarly, email outpaced social media, switching positions from last year. Rounding out the top five, content marketing retained its ranking from 2025. For the first time this year, the survey also asked marketers to rate television/OTT (“over-the-top” streaming TV), which debuted in sixth place at 2.66, ahead of every traditional channel.
Source: ABA Member Survey, July 2026.
*These options do not have responses in all three years due to changes to the question’s answer choices between surveys. Cells are left blank for years in which the option was not offered.
Traditional media generally rated lower from an ROI standpoint, with outdoor advertising and direct mail performing best of those channels. Interestingly, the largest institutions ranked direct mail higher (3.08) than smaller institutions (1.86).
Speaking of variations by size of institution, large institutions rated SEM/SEO higher (4.17) than smaller institutions (2.88). Finally, large institutions rated television/OTT much more highly (2.83) than smaller institutions (1.43). This is likely due to the fact that OTT is actually a digital media channel, delivered through the internet, which means it can be addressed to specific households, allowing for better ROI measurement. As the chart below shows, ratings for all three channels generally rise with asset size, although OTT levels off above $1 billion.
More broadly, these differences by asset size likely reflect a combination of scale and knowledge. Larger institutions typically have the internal or external resources needed to deploy more sophisticated channels effectively, as well as a better understanding of the full range of channels and the potential of each.
Source: ABA Member Survey, July 2026.
Digital dominates intent to increase spend
Next, the survey respondents were asked which media channels they anticipated allocating more budget dollars to in the upcoming year. Four of the five digital channels received top billing this year, as they did last year, with one new arrival, although the order of their ranking changed.
Digital advertising was far and away the highest-rated channel, with 85% of respondents saying they would increase spend next year, up slightly from last year. Next was SEM/SEO, but the percentage slipped slightly to 56% from 63% last year. And 45% of marketers plan to increase their financial commitment to social media, but that is down from 59% two years ago. Content marketing moved into fourth place, up from 27% last year to 38% in the most recent survey. Rounding out the top five, 31% of respondents plan to increase spend on TV/OTT, a new entry this year.
Email slipped two spots this year, with only 29% of respondents planning to increase budgets, down from 31% last year and 42% two years ago. From a traditional channel standpoint, direct mail shone, with 23% of marketers increasing their financial commitment. However, that was down significantly from two years ago, when 34% were increasing direct mail budgets.
Where do you anticipate increasing your marketing budget next year?
*These options do not have responses in all three years due to changes to the question’s answer choices between surveys. Cells are left blank for years in which the option was not offered.
The investment to ROI disconnect
Bank marketers are consistent in investing in top-performing channels, especially digital advertising and SEM/SEO. But beyond those, the results get much more interesting.
Digital advertising is regarded as the top-performing media channel, and the percentage of marketers planning to increase spend on it rose from 68% two years ago to 85% this year, claiming the top spot in investment. Similarly, SEM/SEO was a close second in performance, and marketers have consistently increased investment, at 56% this year.
At this point, the paradox begins. The Email channel was ranked third in performance, just below SEM/SEO. However, the percentage of marketers planning to increase spend in the area has fallen from 42% to 29%. While part of this decline could be attributed to email typically being used with existing customers, and marketers focusing on new customer acquisition, that doesn’t explain the full discrepancy.
For instance, deposit growth has also been a top priority for bank marketers, and existing customers are often the best source for new deposits. What’s more, email is generally among the lowest-cost media channels to deploy, suggesting that marketers are possibly driving up their costs or reducing their ROI by not investing more heavily in it. However, another possible explanation is that email programs are often run in-house, so once the bank invests in the system, limited additional expenses are necessary.
The social media channel is another enigma. From a performance standpoint, it ranked just below Email as a top-performing channel. However, the share of marketers increasing investment in the channel has fallen from 59% two years ago to 45% today. This could be attributed to the fact that investment in social has increased substantially for many banks over the past five years and may be reaching a point of maturity for some.
Finally, among traditional channels, there appears to be a disconnect with regard to direct mail and outdoor advertising investments. While these two channels took the top performance spots in traditional media, particularly direct mail for larger institutions, they do not fare nearly as well from an investment perspective.
Examining outdoor advertising, results have been consistent over the past three years, with approximately 10% of respondents planning to increase investment. Direct mail is even more interesting, with those planning to increase investment falling from 34% in 2024 to 23% this year. A possible explanation for these figures is that these channels are caught in the “downdraft” of the overall shift in spend from traditional to digital channels. However, direct mail has always been addressable to a household and measurable from an ROI standpoint. And with the advent of digital billboards, outdoor advertising is increasingly measurable as well.
The ROI alignment imperative
The banking industry has been placing more reliance on marketing to attract new customers and grow revenue. That shift has increased the expectation that bank marketers can deploy their resources in ways that generate measurable business results. While the findings of this survey indicate that, for the most dominant channels, marketers are shifting resources where perceived performance is greatest, they have also uncovered several areas of misalignment. These findings could provide valuable insight as marketers prepare their plans and budgets for the upcoming year.
Mark Gibson is co-leader of the sales and marketing practice at Capital Performance Group. He can also be reached on LinkedIn or at mark.gibson@capitalperform. com.
